Church Volunteer Management Guide: Strategy, Tips, & Software
Leadership: Effective volunteer management starts with enthusiastic leadership and clear communication of needs.
Screening and Security: Screening volunteers, especially for roles involving children, is crucial for legal and safety reasons.
Training: Training volunteers is essential, with the level of training varying based on the role's complexity.
Caring for Volunteers: Caring for volunteers through recognition, appreciation, and development opportunities is vital for retention.
Clear Roles: Establishing clear roles, setting realistic goals, and using appropriate management software can greatly improve volunteer coordination
Church volunteer management is the intentional process of recruiting, equipping, coordinating, and caring for your church’s volunteers—so they thrive in the roles God’s called them to.
During Bible college, I interned as a children’s ministry leader at Bonavista Evangelical Missionary Church (Calgary, Alberta - up in Canada). I stepped into a vibrant program with dozens of committed adult volunteers and a team of youth leading worship and skits. We offered a full Sunday morning kids’ service that drew in new families weekly.
Today, two decades later, I am STILL grateful for the extraordinary learning ground God placed me in. I witnessed firsthand how strong volunteer management—clear roles, consistent communication, joyful leadership—ripples out to bless every part of church life.
This article pulls together the best practices that helped us build that culture: principles and strategies that any church can use to boost volunteer retention, develop leaders, and multiply ministry impact. When paired with industry-leading volunteer management software tools, the take-aways in this article wil lift your church capacity to an entirely new level.
Whether your team is big or small, you’ll walk away with actionable ideas to strengthen your church from the inside out.
On average, volunteers save your church $28.54 USD per hour served.
Volunteerhub.com
How To Manage Church Volunteers
Finding and keeping great volunteers comes down to three things:
1. Recruiting Church Volunteers
Recruiting starts with you, the pastor, and trickles down into your entire leadership team. The enthusiasm and excitement for your next church project to manage is contagious; it goes a long way towards moving folks from the fringes of your community people into your church’s inner circle.
A) Personally Invite Volunteers to Join.
A personal invitation is anywhere from 5 to 10x more effective than a blanket 'ask' from the pulpit.
Don’t be afraid to announce the church’s needs when starting a new project or ministry. Some pastors are more willing to ask for money than time, but today, it's most often TIME that is the most scarce resource.
Start recruiting well in advance of when you need help. Asking for Wednesday's help on Sunday morning will leave you very short-handed.
Joshua Gordon
REMEMBER: Screen For Possible Legal Issues
Will your new volunteers be interacting with children, either during a one-off church event, or on an ongoing basis? If so, a vulnerable sector police check is a wise move. Most church insurance providers require your church implement a policy protecting your children.
Additionally, if a volunteer seems to be ready to step into a position of key leadership, a background check may be prudent (depending on the nature of their new role).
Consult with your church’s lawyer concerning local laws, and recommendations for appropriate screening measures.
Joshua gordon
B) Cultivate Meaning Relationships with Your Volutneers.
Spend some time talking to your volunteers. Even if it is just a moment or two each, you can get an idea about which parts of ministry they are passionate about. Volunteers will stop coming back if they are not in a role that they enjoy.
Of course, not everyone can do exactly what they want every time. That’s where your encouragement and praise as their leader comes in. A person who feels as though they did a good job will be happy, even if the job was not their first choice.
C) Lead by Example
The top church volunteer management courses teach that perhaps the most impactful thing you can do to recruit and keep volunteers is to lead by example.
One of the most influential leaders I've worked under is my father, Jim Gordon, a seasoned pastor with almost 3 decades of pastoral experience. Dad is legendary for always leading by example, whether that is in giving to the church, volunteering, encouraging others.
Lead by example. Do the work, and the people will follow.
Joshua Gordon
2. Training Your Volunteers
Whether it’s wiping down pews, leading worship, or praying with a church member, every volunteer plays a meaningful role. That’s why training is not optional—it’s a vital act of stewardship.
In this section, we’ll walk through how to prepare volunteers for different levels of responsibility, from simple tasks to spiritual leadership.
Volunteer training equips your people to serve with clarity, confidence, and alignment with your church’s mission.
Joshua gordon
Training for Task-Based Roles
Not every role needs a training manual. The bake-sale fundraiser cashier, for instance, may only need a five-minute walk-through on how to handle the donation app or manage the cash box. Does that mean they're less valuable, though? Of course not: they’re still showing up faithfully to support your church in practical ways.
But even the light-touch roles benefit from clarity:
- What’s expected?
- Who do they report to?
- Where should they be, and when?
Simple, clear instructions reduce confusion and boost confidence—especially for new volunteers.
Equipping Key Ministry Leaders
As volunteers step into more visible or ongoing ministry roles—like sound techs, worship leaders, or greeters—training becomes more detailed. You might need to cover:
- Which tools or materials they’ll use (e.g., approved worship songbooks)
- Safety procedures (especially if children or finances are involved)
- Church values and expectations for hospitality or communication
- Who they report to and how to get support
Volunteers at this capacity often represent the church to newcomers. Training them well ensures that what guests experience reflects your church’s mission and culture.
Preparing Spiritual Leaders: Elders, Deacons, and Beyond
Your elder or deacon board (if they're unpaid) still qualify as volunteers - and are especially in need of special preparation and training. Preparing them for their roles requires careful time, discernment, and care.
Such roles carry significant spiritual (and even legal) responsibility.
Depending on your denomination, elder training may be regulated by bylaws or overseen by a bishop or denominational leader.
Joshua gordon
Example: Requirements to Join the Pastoral Team
At New Life Fellowship, where I serve on the pastoral team, we've laid out several guidelines for adding individuals to our elder team. These guidelines ensure compatibility and chemistry with the other pastors, proven character and commitment to our church, a lifestyle that demonstrates their trust in Jesus, and evidence of their calling as a shepherd.
- The individual must have completed a pre-determined year-long discipleship training and pastoral counselling course.
- The individual must be able to clearly and succinctly communicate the values of our church, and the life-changing truth of the Gospel.
- The individual must commit to sitting on the pastoral team as a non-voting member for an undefined amount of time.
- The individual must receive unanimous approval from the other members of the pastoral team.
As well, we have laid out the requirements to removed someone from our pastoral team. It requires a unanimous vote by the other pastors. NOTE: all pastors on our team have equal voice. As of this writing, there are four pastors - two volunteers, one full-time, and one part-time. However, volunteer/staff status does not impact the weight of the individuals voice.
In general, before appointing someone to your elder or deacon board, they must have proven their character, over time. Look at their track record for acts of service and care: praying with people, participating in projects, showing consistency over time.
Be wary of those who seek out the platform.
Training for elders might include:
- Bible study and theological development
- Role-specific guidelines (e.g., when to counsel vs. refer to a pastor)
- Conflict resolution and congregational care
- Accountability and character checks
Above all, you’re looking for humility, maturity, and a shepherd’s heart—not ambition. Pray with them. Walk with them. Make sure they’re there to serve, not control.
When church leadership is healthy, the entire body benefits. When it’s not, it can cause deep harm.
Training as a Filter
Training doesn’t just equip—it also protects. It helps you identify people who are a good fit for leadership and gently redirect those who are not. While power-seeking volunteers are rare, they do exist. Clear training, strong accountability, and wise oversight are your best tools to ensure your volunteer structure reflects the heart of Christ..
The Link Between Volunteers and Donors
Church volunteers are almost twice as likely to donate to that church than those that don’t volunteer (according to The Corporation for National & Community Service.) Further to the point, 71% of volunteers work with only one organization each year. This highlights the potential for long-term commitment when church volunteers are properly managed (and when your donor management software is effectively setup!)
3. Care for Volunteers (So They Come Back!)
Good volunteers are a church’s most precious resource. To keep them coming back, they must be cared for. Encouragement and praise are your greatest tools for keeping volunteers happy. Still, after a long day of packing groceries for a food drive, those church members are probably going to be hungry. That sounds like a perfect time for a pizza party!
Yes, the pizza party is cliche, but most people love it. What else can you do to make your volunteers feel special and encouraged to return for your next project?
Keeping in Contact with Volunteers
We’ll cover volunteer scheduling below, but, on your volunteer list, you should have an email or phone number. Hopefully, both. Get on the phone with your leadership team and call the volunteers to give them a personal “Thank You” from the pastor and church elders.
Church Announcements
We all have announcements on Sunday morning, usually just before or just after praise and worship. Place a general “Thank You” to all volunteers or a specific one if a volunteer did a really great job.
Volunteer Appreciation
Find a Christian leadership retreat or conference, such as these. Take your volunteers there both as a treat and for development. Bulk rates in hotel rooms can bring costs down, and churches near big cities may not even need to stay in hotel rooms for these kinds of conferences. Although, the trip is half the fun in itself. (You might also consider organizing your own church conference.)
Best Practices + Tips for Church Volunteer Management
In this section, I want to take you through some tips and best practices for church volunteer management. We might double back over a couple of points from above, but reinforcement is key to learning.
Create clear roles for each volunteer position.
As you put on more events and develop your core volunteers, you might find that they start forming volunteer groups. Some will only show up for the bake sales. Others will only show up for food drives. Some will show up only to fold announcement papers if you even do that anymore. The point is that your volunteers will find people and jobs that they are comfortable with and attempt to stay there as much as possible.
While this is not a bad thing, per se, these small groups can develop into cliques if left unchecked. You can avoid this by establishing a very clear hierarchy from the beginning. By giving the role of gatekeeper to a person from the start, you stop everyone from trying to claim it at once. Just be sure the person in charge of each group is someone who is willing to bring new volunteers into the fold.
Establishing clear roles is also extremely helpful in figuring out where things went wrong. It’s going to happen. Some disaster will befall your event, and you will want to find out how to stop it from happening next time. By ensuring that everyone has a specific job, you can tell who messed up and might need more training. Just be prepared. That person is going to be with you a significant amount of the time. Those are the breaks of being the one in charge.
Finally, on this point, establishing clear roles allows you to identify those who are willing to step outside the lines for their own benefit. As I said earlier, these people are not common, but it only takes one to cause deep pain for many people. Your ministry leaders should be willing to do anything for the cause, but not for their own gain. Volunteer management is about protecting your church community as much as it is about helping it grow.
Tie volunteer roles to specific goals.
Realistic goals are all a part of that enthusiasm and praise I looked at earlier. Like all things, setting your goals is a balancing act that comes with experience. If your goals are too easy, your church leaders won’t feel a sense of accomplishment for achieving them. Meanwhile, harsh goals can suck the joy right out of any number of volunteers.
How do we find that balance? Experience, for one. For two, ask other pastors in your area how successful they have been. Maybe research your local area’s recent history for the type of event your church event management team is planning. If you have never done this type of event before, set your goals just slightly under the average. Always give yourself some wiggle room to find ways to praise people for reaching the goals you set.
On that note, not every group has to have the same goal, even within the same event. Let’s look at a 5K Fun Run. You might divide the volunteer groups into pre-race day and race day teams. Pre-race day might consist of the children’s ministry trying to collect donations for the runners and the route planners working with the city to find an appropriate day.
Neither group would have the same goals, and their success does not depend on the other. The race day team might have a team that is in charge of getting each runner checked-in and pointed toward the start/finish line and start/finish team that would keep the time and prepares the finish line for the runners as they cross it.
All of those small groups work together to create the event even though they each strive toward different goals. What their goals should depend entirely on your church community and the number of volunteers you have to work with.
Impacts of High vs Low Volunteerism in Churches*
- Churches with higher volunteer engagement attract four times more new people and see 40% more decisions for Christ.
- Low volunteer engagement correlates with 67% more debt, larger boards, and more committees.
- High volunteer engagement drives growth, small group participation, and more volunteer leaders.
- High volunteer engagement churches also consistently offer online services, debunking the myth that online options hinder volunteerism.)
*Hat tip to Tony Morgan (from Unstuck Group) and his research work
Other Best Practices For Church Volunteer Management
Here are a few other quick tips for managing your church volunteers.
- Background checks can save your church legal trouble. When in doubt, consult an attorney.
- Social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) is how many people communicate with the world these days. A tech-savvy volunteer coordinator can wrangle a large number of volunteers with a couple of Tweets. If you don’t know how to use social media, find someone in your volunteer pool or leadership group who does.
- Lead from the front. Don’t ever ask your volunteers to do something you wouldn’t do. They will know that there is a double standard, and they will run.
- Discipleship is key to great volunteer leaders. Just like the previous point, don’t promote someone who is not willing to serve. Churches have rules, and your ministry leaders need to be people who can listen. They don’t have to be robots who do exactly as you say and nothing else, but humility is one of the spiritual gifts. As someone who has stacked and folded thousands of chairs before getting a chance to preach, this one is close to my heart.
- Don’t neglect spiritual training for your volunteer group. As you train them to assist with event check-in or whatever is at hand, don’t forget to relate back to the reason why you are all there in the first place: outreach into your neighborhood and community. Whether your focus is on soul-winning, fundraising, or just reminding people of a safe space in the community, always take a few minutes to pray with your volunteers or quote relevant scriptures about your event. This fosters solidarity and mindfulness around your larger goals.
A final point on those rare instances of a disruptive influence among your volunteer staff. Mercy and patience are always in order, but some people will not take the hint. You are the boss in your church, and you have the right and responsibility to kick someone out who is making it difficult for others to work.
Tell them they can come back after they have cooled down if you want, but protecting your congregation will increase their respect for you and make them more likely to come back.
Church Volunteer Management Software
Church Management Software, or ChMS, is any computer program or mobile app that allows you to keep the information about your church and its members in one place. (Heads up: we've compiled a curated list of the top church management solutions for you. If you're on a tight budget - we've also compared and ranked the best FREE church management tools.) Sometimes, ChMS will also allow you to track your volunteers. I will highlight the best ChMS for churches that are trying to grow their volunteer program.
Here are the criteria I used:
- Is it user-friendly?
- Does it have competitive pricing?
- Is church volunteer scheduling part of its functionality?
After careful analysis and some playing around with demos, ChurchCRM is a great option to consider. ChurchCRM is free, easy-to-use, and fits the above criteria. More than just volunteer scheduling software, it has event registration, Sunday school groups, fundraising, and more. Maintain your rosters of volunteers with a few clicks or swipes. Installation can be a bit tricky, but the ChurchCRM team has a very helpful video right on the page I linked.
Think of ChurchCRM as something to help your church’s volunteer program grow to new heights. You will find different needs and solutions as you and your volunteers grow in ministry. You can find links to articles that will recommend more specialized and expensive software below, including specialized grant management tools.
If ChurchCRM is a little too techy to start, Flocknote is another option that deals primarily with texts and emails for organizations. The setup is simpler, and it requires a subscription that starts at $8/month to fully unlock its features. Flocknote also requires $39/month to reach a similar level of function as ChurchCRM, although it has a simpler user interface.
ChMeetings is another option I would recommend. It’s the easiest to use, but it does not have the same robust support for volunteer management as the other two apps.
Find specific church volunteer management software here.
If you want more in-depth looks at a variety of software for churches try these:
- 10 Best Church Management Software For Small Churches
- 10 Best Church Database Software For Information Management
- 10 Best Church Data Management Systems
- 2025's Top Church Accounting Software Tools
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PS: Some great related reads: